Chris McCandless Supertramp - Animal Planet on right now New video

[Wise Old Owl]

SuperTramp is his trail name on right now.

[hikerhobs]

into the wild , cool movie :cool:

[hikerboy57]

the movie was better.watched this last night.

[Half Note]

I'm actually reading Into the Wild right now. My favorite quote so far:

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

Rings so true.

[SassyWindsor]

Ever so often an idiot like Timothy Treadwell comes along. McCandless met and maybe exceeded this type of stupidity.

[hikerboy57]

Ever so often an idiot like Timothy Treadwell comes along. McCandless met and maybe exceeded this type of stupidity.
neither idiots nor heroes, simply living the lives they wanted to live.social misfits more comfortable living (and dying) outside of "civilization".
many of us have pushed the limit or made a poor decision that nearly cost us our lives, some just didnt make it. mccandless was not stupid. he made mistakes that cost him his life, but he was not stupid.

[SassyWindsor]

#1.
Christopher McCandless


http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/stupid_deaths/wild.jpgWhat He Tried to Prove:
That he didn't need the shallow comforts of modern life, damnit.
The Method:
Everyone, at some point in their life, has had the desire to just leave it all behind. For some people, this involves starting over in another country, for others, it involves cancelling their World of Warcraft (http://www.cracked.com/article_15657_a-world-warcraft-world-10-ways-online-gaming-will-change-future.html) subscription. Christopher McCandless (http://outside.away.com/outside/features/1993/1993_into_the_wild_1.html) decided, **** it, he'd just leave his family, and all of civilization, behind.
McCandless had a strong contempt for the "empty materialism of American society," and just took off to live in the wild of Alaska, with little to no food or equipment. Just the way nature intended!

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/stupid_deaths/wild2.jpgWhat He Actually Proved:
That the corrupt, capitalist society he so loathed was pretty much the only thing keeping him alive. Though the book on McCandless's life and the movie it spawned were sympathetic to the whole situation, many Alaskans believe that he was foolish to embark on such a lifestyle without the appropriate skills or equipment, such as a map or compass. Or common sense.

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/stupid_deaths/wild3.jpgAlaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian has said (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless#Cultural_legacy),
"When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn't even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he [had] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament [... ] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide."
Ouch. The man who set out to prove we didn't need frivolities like houses and electricity wound up being the poster child for staying indoors. Good job, Chris.


Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_16760_6-people-who-died-in-order-to-prove-retarded-point.html#ixzz2EW4PhCgh

[hikerhobs]

to each their own!

[hikerboy57]

i agree with the rangers assessment that he committed suicide.
not stupid.like i said no hero either. inconsiderate, absolutely, and again wanted to live and die outside of civilization.i dont believe he had any intention of ever returning.
he made very deliberate choices and hurt just about everyone he came into contact with. and suicide is the ultimate selfish act.

[HikerMom58]

You're right about that HB... suicide is the ultimate selfish act. We don't understand the issue's that drove him to that place tho. I agree that stupidity wouldn't be one of his issue's.

[cliffordbarnabus]

suicide...the ultimate selfish act
...or...
perhaps the epitome of freedom?

[hikerboy57]

suicide...the ultimate selfish act
...or...
perhaps the epitome of freedom?
suicide is not freedom, its death.
no, selfish

[hikerboy57]

my brother in law committed suicide on july 30th,2011.on his sisters and mothers birthday.

[cliffordbarnabus]

hb...totally not trying to make it personal

but no one who has ever lived has asked to. and some don't want to.

[hikerboy57]

in most cases suicide is a very deliberate act intended to hurt.. I believe I had a death wish myself when I was young and I didn't care who I hurt while I was living my life to the fullest. sooner or later you learned that life isn't all about you it's about what you can contribute.

[hikerboy57]

hb...totally not trying to make it personal

but no one who has ever lived has asked to. and some don't want to.
i really do understand what you're saying, but if you really want to experience the very best that life has to offer, yoou have to look outside yourself. look we're all hikers here, we all indulge in a hobby that in itself has little to contribute to society , but i believe as well that we do come back from the woods all the better for it and i believe it makes us better contributors. hey we all come back to share our experiences right here on wb, even those like mr gault and mr monkey to claim to hate people. we come back to lecture/educate/argue because we are social animals.
and its all good.

[T.S.Kobzol]

I read the years ago and got disappointed with the carelessness of mccandless and his overall lack of virtue. Unprepared, and rejecting materialism he settles not too far from the.road and lives in a product of materialistic Society _ a broken crappy littering bus. And stays there doing basically nothing. Miserable.

So I didn't go watch the movie when it came out in theaters. I know he is gonna die, and make mistakes that Piss me off so why would I pay money to watch it?

It is a coincidence but a while ago someone asked if I saw the movie saying it was good.


So I got it via Netflix. Watched first 20 minutes and turned it off due to lack of interest.

Im a grumpy old man I suppose.

People in survived over the ages because they lived in groups and communities.they needed to rely on each others support especially when moving into harsher environment. Living in Alaska people first needed the support of commemorated shared materials before they.acquired the knowhow to survive year round. At that point there are rare individuals who manage to survive on their own but it is so very hard to do so. The warmer months are spent with hard work every day preparing for the winter and then in the winter doing the.l best you can to survive and then the cycle repeats. It is a fun and games until you get old and can not put in the hard work to prepare for the hard Alaskan Winters. At that point you need a community and kindness of people and their materials.

It is painful to read what mccandless did.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

[T.S.Kobzol]

Crappy autocorrect and Tapatalk doesn't allow me to edit. Commemorative = community

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

[TNjed]

Why would you go into Alaska of all places in the winter with nothing but a bag of rice and a .22 rifle? What can you kill to eat in Alaska with that small of a rifle? A bag of rice? At least take a bag of pintos or something. Im not sure why everyone romanticizes this guy and what he did. It was irresponsible to say the least, and just plain stupid. I'm sorry the guy is dead but he could have walked out. He wasn't far from anything. He didn't seem to know anything about his surroundings, he might as well been in the desert with a quart of water. I don't get it. And, if he wanted to live off the land so bad why was he living in a bus?

[Malto]

Not sure how you can call what Chris did - suicide. Unprepared? Yes. Stupid? Maybe. But suicide? Absolutely not. His intention was not to die it was to live. To call this suicide means you would have to call every death where folks are unprepared for their situation suicide and clearly it's not. "Everything needs to be called by its proper name."

I liked the movie, Eddie Vedder's soundtrack is outstanding.

[hikerboy57]

but he was more than unprepared, he was woefully unprepared.and had no intentions of returning,didnt even think about it until he was starving.i dont call it suicide as in putting a bullet in his head, more on an unconcious level of rejecting society and living off the land as best he could, without any outdoor experience or research of the area . he was a smart kid, so stupid i think doesnt really explain his actions. folly? more so.
didnt he ever hear of thruhiking?could have rejected materialism and made town stops every 4 days or so.
and yes the eddie vedder soundtrack is outstanding

[Pedaling Fool]

Just another misguided spoiled rich kid, end of story :rolleyes:

[HikerMom58]

If we're going to try to WAG as to why he did what he did, I will throw out my guess and say - mental illness. I don't believe he was stupid at all. People do stupid things but that doesn't mean they are stupid. I'm sure he was very intelligent.

[Malto]

I wouldn't over think this. This is exactly the same as what we see on here. I'm sure many of the folks that come on here with wild eyed enthusiasm and a half baked plan are also very intelligent. But intelligence doesn't equal common sense.

[T-Rx]

I think he was a very smart kid with the same dream that many before him have had. The dream to chunk it all and leave behind society and all it's trappings. However, I also believe he was woefully unprepared for that undertaking and lack of preparation can lead to disastrous consequences as it did with Chris. He lacked good old common sense in this regard for sure. But the longer I live on this earth the more I find that common sense is not always so common. In fact I often refer to it as "uncommon sense" because I see it displayed so little sometimes.

[Tom Murphy]

Ever so often an idiot like Timothy Treadwell comes along. McCandless met and maybe exceeded this type of stupidity.

+1, a senseless death

[Capt Nat]

He made a serious effort to leave, found his way blocked, and didn't know what to do. That doesn't equal suicide... Should have had a compass and map, but I once heard of someone who walked off on the Appalachian Trail without a map and compass.

[johnnybgood]

If we're going to try to WAG as to why he did what he did, I will throw out my guess and say - mental illness. I don't believe he was stupid at all. People do stupid things but that doesn't mean they are stupid. I'm sure he was very intelligent.

I believe we all desire the simplicity of life that escapes us in a complex world,and hiking fulfills that need,albeit just for awhile . He was an idealistic kid with a dream of living distant of all the trappings of society .

[Mags]

What twenty-something hasn't tried to grab the Big One and nearly died trying?

What has happened in the years since his death is that he has almost become deified.

McCandless' story struck a chord with many people because it did reflect a certain segment of society: Young people who are a bit idealistic and romantic who yearn for the big adventure. Like many young people, he was ill prepared and in over his head. Unlike many people who did stupid things in their early 20s , his luck came up badly. (God knows I did! An incident comes to mind about my two buddies and I driving in a snowstorm in my friend's jeep so we could go to the all night diner at 2 am...and after perhaps one too many beers. ;) ) "There but for the grace of God go I..."

If things were just a bit different, he probably would have survived. He would probably be one of these people you meet who talk about the crazy stuff he did in his early 20s. At the end of the book, McCandless displayed signs that he was ready to move on. Ready to enter a different stage of life.

INTO THE WILD is a good book because it does explore this pull many people have felt at some point in their life (and still feel). That is why many people related to it.

Having said that, Chris did some stupid things. Ill prepared. Not the right gear. Dying in an area that would not be considered wilderness by western US standards...much less Alaskan standards. As I said, things could have turned out much differently for him and his family.

He was a flawed, bright and an idealistic guy (like many of us at some point in our lives).

He was not the Christ-like figure portrayed in the movie (good god..flowing down the stream with his arms spread out????) but he was not the Treadwell like-loonie either IMO.

He was a dumb-ass kid who got in over his head. Unlike many other dumb-ass kids who get in over their heads, he paid the ultimate price. God knows I was a dumb-ass kid when I was 21. The difference? I didn't die because of it.

[Wise Old Owl]

McCandless was strongly influenced by Jack London (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London), Leo Tolstoy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy), W. H. Davies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Davies) and Henry David Thoreau (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau). In his junior year, he declined membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi_Beta_Kappa_Society), on the basis that honors and titles were irrelevant. McCandless graduated from Emory on May 12, 1990 with a Bachelor's degree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor%27s_degree), double majoring in history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History) and anthropology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology)

Yup a dumb ass kid. Should have studied under Ray Mears.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEVB0cpEPVA

[MuddyWaters]

I think he had some issues, and wasnt all there.

His previous sucess at being a homeless person on the fringe of society, emboldened him to think he could go live off the land totally in the wilderness.
He was woefully unprepared, in every way.
He wasnt even really in "wilderness". The area he was in was a days walk from civilization, and freqently traveled part of the year by others. Typically the definition of wilderness today is that mechanized forms of travel are not permitted, etc. That wasnt even the case where he was.

He was just plain stupid.

However, on some level I think many people relate to the desire for a simpler life, the way we lived for thousands of years. When the world was wild , beautiful, and wondrous.

In a way, its the same reason many like to go for long walks in the mountains.

[fadeleaf]

i really do understand what you're saying, but if you really want to experience the very best that life has to offer, yoou have to look outside yourself. look we're all hikers here, we all indulge in a hobby that in itself has little to contribute to society , but i believe as well that we do come back from the woods all the better for it and i believe it makes us better contributors. hey we all come back to share our experiences right here on wb, even those like mr gault and mr monkey to claim to hate people. we come back to lecture/educate/argue because we are social animals.
and its all good.

What Chris did was no less selfish than a thru-hike. And he wasn't anti-social.


but he was more than unprepared, he was woefully unprepared.and had no intentions of returning,didnt even think about it until he was starving.i dont call it suicide as in putting a bullet in his head, more on an unconcious level of rejecting society and living off the land as best he could, without any outdoor experience or research of the area . he was a smart kid, so stupid i think doesnt really explain his actions. folly? more so.
didnt he ever hear of thruhiking?could have rejected materialism and made town stops every 4 days or so.
and yes the eddie vedder soundtrack is outstanding

A lot of you seem too eager to attach yourselves to an oversimplified explanation that conveniently fits some predefined generalization you have of the situation. The minimalistic mentality doesn't belong in the areas of reading and research.

http://www.terraincognitafilms.com/wild/call_debunked.htm

Jon Krakauer: People don’t get it. “He didn’t even have a map! What kind of idiot.” That was the point. There’s no blank spots on the map anymore, anywhere on earth. You want a blank spot on the map, you’ve got to leave the map behind.

Although they later did find a map in his possessions, (along with $300 and personal identification, clearly indicating he was planning on returning at some point) which Krakauer seems to ignore.


Just another misguided spoiled rich kid, end of story

Oh yes, very rich and very spoiled. Obviously.

[fadeleaf]

Meant to say:

What Chris did was no MORE selfish than a thru-hike. And he wasn't anti-social.

[HikerMom58]

Well, I just did a quick search on this man... I looked at his timeline link.

In HS, he was an amazing runner but as a "coach" of his HS CC team, he told the runners to imagine they were running away from all the evil and darkness in the world... that's a weird thing to say as a HS aged kid, to his peers.
In college, he cut ties with his parents b/c he found out that his dad had an affair.... Wow!
Co-workers at McDonalds said he was ODD.
He writes his journal in a melodramatic third person perspective.
Those are just a few things that I read that raises "red flags" in my mind. When someone, who is so intelligent, lacks logic- which is clearly seen in this man's "story". It seems like he was struggling with something going on inside his head. I believe for some people it's a fine line, to which only the professionals would be able to make that call. I'm not saying he had a mental illness but after reading his timeline, it still makes me wonder.....

[skinewmexico]

A college degree in no way is the ultimate indicator of intelligence, it's all relative. History and anthropology? I took those to raise my GPA. I think there are a lot of people around who got extra idealism, and completely skipped the counter giving out common sense.

[cliffordbarnabus]

he lived the life he wanted to live. he died doing what he wanted to be doing.

would a life of fluorescent lights, push-button thermostats, and "dead"lines have been better? more fulfilling?